No, no, no.

Ms. Palin objected to funding the half-way house but not to helping teen mothers. Indeed, I believe she w as working on a program called  "Operation Baby Oil" in which teen mothers and their infants would be shipped off to ANWR to work the derricks. These are some excerpts:

"This operation has several key components where the young mothers would truly learn to care for themselves and gain real world experience. A comprehensive program, these are some of its highlights:

Bountiful Food: Since nothing is more nutritious for babies and new mothers than protein and fat, all workers will be supplied with a harpoon for spearing seals, a never-ending source of food.

Universal Health Care: All workers (and babes-in-arms) will be supplied with a CUSTOM FITTED Coolie hat to ward off the hot Alaskan sun.

Child Care: Obviously, the little tykes can't work on the derricks (yet!), so what's to be done with them? Easy, all the nippers will be provided with their own child-sized (but fully functional) pistol, lovingly crafted by the good folks Beretta. Thus, children will learn to care for themselves and not rely on someone doing it for them early on. And with wildlife abundant (at least for a little while) at ANWR, they'll certainly get plenty of practice: that liberally-biased polar bear on PBS Nature a wee bit more friendly than the real thing out here."

--So as you all can see, Michelle jumped the gun on this . There really is a perfectly rational explanation.

Well, Michelle, there are those who'll counter your argument with something like this: "It's the parents' responsibility and not the government's to raise and feed the child." Of course, that's intellectually dishonest since the baby can't do anything if he or she's parents are fiscally and parentally irresponsible. The GOP knows their position on this is a load of bollocks, but, as I continue to point out, they view themselves as untouchable in regard to selfishness and other sins just as long as they're anti-abortion.

(And, please, can't we put this "pro-life" stuff to rest and use "anti-abortion" instead since most Republicans support the unChristianian death penalty?)

I'm glad you cleared that up gaiseric455, but you forgot the baby seal-skin boot straps. How can you pull yourself up by the boot straps if you don't have any?  

Michelle: Great post - and good reporting.

Underscore "Other People's". The right seems to have a proclivity to call-out everyone else's behavior in the community - or the country - or the world - but it's hands off when it comes to their own conduct - within their family...the community...the country...or overseas.

"Other People" sums up what they're all about, division rather than unity, a cultural separatism made especially intolerable by their hypocrisy. Check out Palin's ties to Abramoff crony Steven Silver:

thinkprogress.org/.../palins-lobbyist-was-abramoffs-lobbyst

Silver was part of "Team Abramoff".

Yuck.

Isn't this a perfect example of why the Republican Party is often called "the party of life from conception to birth?"

Isn't it possible that Palin had a very reasonable reason for cutting the budget to $3.9M from $5M?  Taking this one budget cut out of context fails to provide the full picture.  I don't know the details of what other cuts were made or what the operating budget of the Convenant House was, but shouldn't those also be considered in a critique of Palin's decision making?  Maybe the previous year's budget was $3M and the $3.9 actually represented a substantial increase.  Maybe she was trying to balance the budget.  Maybe she cut the budget broadly in a number of areas where she was concerned about the possibility of fraud, waste, or abuse.  Just because she agrees with the overall mission of the organization, doesn't mean that its receipt of state funds should be provided without condition.

kevincollins writes:

-- And, please, can't we put this "pro-life" stuff to rest and use "anti-abortion"

I sort of agree - although I would go further and suggest that pro-lifers are only anti-abortion to the extent they seek to prevent qualified medical personnel from performing them. Pro-choice supporters want abortions to be performed only by qualified medical personnel while so-called pro-life supporters want abortions to be performed only by backstreet butchers.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh GOD YES!

THIS is how to frame the Bristol mess. Not on the personal side, on the policy side.

The whole "it's-a-family-matter" line is bogus. Palin's record is littered with positions directly related to teenage pregnancy. Her support for Abstinence Only have-no-Sex-Ed should be target #1. Stuff like this should come in the very next breath.

We need some surrogates working this beat. Why won't Sarah Palin lift a finger for girls who get pregnant unless they happen to be her daughter? That's politics, baby...

brownjr, you raise some fair questions. One thing is for sure -- she was not trying to balance the budget. The state was running billions in surplus. She made a number of nickel and dime cuts to programs like this for reasons that were not so clear, while signing a state budget that was overall much larger than in the past. Some of her line item vetoes appear to have been revenge on particular members of the Legislature; there has been a running saga over these small discretionary projects.

brownjr, even in the hypothetical cases you propose, which seem not to be the case anyway, this cut still demonstrates Palin's values and priorities. After all, your values aren't what you would prefer to do; your values are what you do. So Palin says she supports teen mothers bringing their babies to term. But if she cut this program to, say, balance an out-of-balance budget, then that would prove that however much she values teen mothers, she values balancing the state budget _more_. And since there are any number of ways to balance the state budget, it also proves that she values plenty of other stuff more than she actually values teen mothers. The cut Palin made equals about $1.50 for every Alaskan, so whatever Palin says about how much she cares for teen mothers, we know that she values a buck fifty even more.

Very interesting what the press finds out about Ms. Palin's record at cosmic speed.  Yes, it would appear she has a record; as a governor she can't just vote present on the tough calls like a certain former state legislator who shall remain un-named.  Some will like that record; some will hate it.  But, she is not the only candidate with a thin record and I don't detect anything like the same degree of ardor on the part of the MSM in exploring the blank spaces in his biography.  

This publication has aired some questions about Obama; e.g, the Annenberg Center papers he'd rather be left closed; the college thesis he can't remember.  Good for TNR.  But nobody in the MSM seems much interested in poking around too much.  For Ms. Palin, by contrast the surgical scrubs have been donned and the proctological exam of her political and personal life is racing ahead.

If she can't take the heat, she should stay out of the kitchen.  But if we're applying heat, let's spread it around a little more evenly.

Rhubarbs, your logic is flawed.  Cutting the budget for the Covenant House doesn't mean that Palin doesn't value single mothers or that the level to which she does value them can be measured in an absolute sense.  At best it could be measured in a relative sense.  To take the argument to a ridiculous point of absurdity just to prove a point, what if there were only one single mother in Alaska and she got the entire $3.9M.  Would you then say that she didn't value single mothers or that she was overvaluing them and providing a safety net for making a personal decision (to have a baby) and then expecting the government to take care of her?  There are waaaay too many factors not addressed in the subject article to establish any relevant opinion of how much Palin values single mothers.

The controversy surrounding the revelation of the Sarah Palin's daughter and how the evangelical right has responded needs to be explored and reported more.  The hypocrisy of right wing evangelicals on this matter is astonishing.  Essentially, party loyalty and fealty to McCain campaign talking points trumps their long held views regarding the benefits and virtues of teen abstinence.  For at least the last 8 years, the American people have been forced to accept the fallacy of abstinence as a viable birth control method for teens.  Now that one of the most strident members of the evangelical right is confronted with the obvious short comings of this approach, the right wing, and to a large extend, the press are silent on this.

The press is always silent when it comes to bulies. Think Bush 2000.

It would be interesting to know who will provide medical insurance for the infant--Medicaid perhaps?

And what an interesting thing that appeared at Yahoo News with  GOP female leader saying this:

"While Obama has been highlighting the need for fiscal responsibility in his campaign, Palin has actually cut spending by 500 million dollars in her state budget, Blackburn said."

And in this case we certainly know where  $1.1 million of that $500 million came out of, don't we?